Unions and the Seniority “Threat”: The impact of internal organization on unions’ pension policy preferences

摘要: Throughout Europe, workforces are ageing, and the membership profile of unions is becoming weighted towards older workers and pensioners. How do these changes affect the positions that unions adopt with regard to welfare state reforms? This paper argues that how pensioners are represented within unions, rather than how many pensioners there are in unions, helps shape confederal positions on pension reform. Our theory suggests that peaklevel representatives of labor will be more likely to support pension reform proposals that involve substantial modifications to the future benefits of current workers, as long as the pensions of most current retirees are not threatened, if two conditions are met:(1) labor movements are characterized by a high potential for pensioner influence at the confederal level, and (2) confederal (peak-level) union structures exercise meaningful authority over sectoral unions. Evidence from Italy and Germany confirms that the “graying” of union membership per se is unlikely to be the source of union intransigence on pension reform. One important policy implication is that strengthening the representation of pensioner interests within unions may actually help, rather than hinder, the process of long-term pension system reform.